'Ellington and Braud demonstrated that the string bass, when properly miked, had a more explosive, incisive quality than the tuba - Ellington credited Braud with "crowding the microphone." Duke made sure Braud was placed so he would be prominent on records, and the innovation was so successful that Duke - and later pretty much everyone else - gave up using tuba in jazz rhythm sections.'

• Born on a rice farm owned by his father in St. James Parish, New Orleans. Family is farmers and brickmasons, living in Brookstown, La.
• Surname originally spelled Breaux.
• Played violin when he was 12.
• Moved to New Orleans at age 16 or 1911.
• Began professional career playing drums.
• When he left New Orleans at age 20, Wellman was a fiddle player, also mandolin, and he played guitar before leaving New Orleans at age 20.
• In Chicago he played trombone until his lip went bad in 1916 or 1919 and he took up string bass. Hadn't studied or read music until he started playing trombone. Studied with a Professor Jackson in Chicago.
• Played a year with Kid Ory.
• In 1919 was in the 17 piece Creole Band, led by Charles Elgar.
• Went to Europe with Will Vodery's Plantation Orchestra in a Blackbirds revue with Florence Mills, returned in 1923.
• Saturday Night Function was his first recording. It used no drums so he played percussively. (Elsewhere he remembers other records being his first, including something in 1919.)
• Played sousaphone on some Ellington recordings.
• Bass Edwards was a tuba player and didn't play string bass; Braud came into the band on string bass, so it should be easy for researchers to identify the bassist on early Ellington records.
• Claims to have written Double Check Stomp
• Denies there were two basses when he was with Ellington.

• 'I found it interesting that Wellman says his dad changed Breaux to Braud because so much mail was addressed to Breaux it got mixed up. The pronunciation [of Breaux] was "bro" and Wellman pronounced Braud the same way.
• There is no recording of Saturday Night Function with Ellington and without drums. Braud first recorded with Ellington on 1927 10 06. The earliest known recording of Saturday Night Function is the 1929 01 16 Victor recording. The only recordings listed in discographies by Braud that predate his joining Ellington are four sides by Thomas Morris and His Seven Hot Babies recorded for Victor on 1926 11 12 & 24 on which Braud plays string bass.'
• We can prove that Billy Taylor played bass and tuba alongside [Braud] in late 1934 and early 1935.'
• 'The label of Victor V-38129 credits Double Check Stomp to "Bigard-Brand[sic]-Hodges," while that of Brunswick 4783 credits "Bigard." ASCAP's Ace title search credits DCS to Bigard and Irving Mills and shows the publisher as EMI Mills Music Inc. I haven't checked the copyright, but assume it agrees with ASCAP's listing. Given Braud's statement in the interview that "I wrote Double Check Stomp," don't we wish we could go back to 1930 and ask Bigard and Braud exactly who wrote what?'
• 'I heard the interview with Braud in the 1990s when I visited Tulane. Since then I've bought a copy of "New Orleans Style" by Bill Russell (compiled and edited by Barry Martyn & Mike Hazeldine), Jazzology Press, 1994, a book that condenses Russell's interviews with many of the most significant New Orleans musicians. In the book, Wellman makes the statement (which I suppose we'll find somewhere in the audio interview) that "I think I'm the first person to start the walking bass." This is to me the most significant statement to be found in the interview and HIGHLY inclusion-worthy in TDWAW.'

• 'Braud, paraphrased at p.112 of "New Orleans Style":

  "I always played for tone, just like when I'm playing sousaphone on The Mooche. I was always curious about things in music. Always asking questions. Anyhow, one day I went over to the Rochester Theater and got talking to the sousaphone player. He was hitting four tones at once on his horn. He said that he had been first brass bass with John Phillip Sousa for twenty-five years. I knew he had to know what he was doing and in fact, he made that horn sound like a string bass. You have to take the dumb side if you want to learn with a professional, so I asked him how he got that tone. He told me it came from the strike of the tongue and so I went home and practiced on that for a long while. That's how I got the effect on The Mooche with Duke's band." '

'Tom Whaley - Footnotes and Whole Notes in Jazz History
If Billy Strayhorn was the "shadowy figure" of the Duke Ellington organization, then Tom Whaley operated under deep cover. When mentioned at all in the annals of jazz, he typically appears in the footnote as Tom Whaley 1892-1986, chief copyist for Duke Ellington 1941-1968 [recte 1971].
  ...Whaley was a trained musician and pianist who began his career in 1912; ... He recalls meeting Ellington in New York in 1923... By the late '20s, Whaley began orchestrating as a musical director for various New York theatres. His duties included rehearsing acts and vocalists for popular amateur nights. ... he rehearsed [Ella Fitzgerald] for a Lafayette Theatre amateur night and recalls that he ... introduced her to Chick Webb and his wife. Whaley remembers introducing Sarah Vaughn to Earl Hines while working ... as director of the Harlem Opera House. In 1931 [recte 1935], he began a long association with the Apollo Theatre.
 ... The music manuscripts in the Ellington Archives tell many tales. Scattered throughout are many scores in Whaley's hand...
 ...I believe Tom Whaley, who considered himself "Head Librarian" of the Ellington organization...
 ...Ellington reportedly displayed disregard for his own music manuscripts... It is my personal notion that Ellington could afford such a casual public stance because he was well aware that Tom Whaley was behind the scenes documenting Ellington's role in 20th century American music... '

• Circa 1923: met at Robinson's Restaurant in NYC where Tom was playing the piano
• 1941 - 1950: Hired by Ellington as copyist, taking over from Juan Tizol
• 1950: Left Ellington in a dispute over money, returning in 1951.
• Circa 1965: Became choirmaster for the Sacred Concerts
• 1969: Conducted Ellington band at White House for Medal of Freedom Award and birthday celebration

'Attached is the 1940 census, which shows his occupation as orchestra manager. Also attached is a copy of his death certificate. Even though it says he was a lifelong resident of Dallas, the Social Security Death index shows he obtained his card in New York... Here's a link to his headstone'

'You don't hear much about Boyd but reviews of Ellington stage performances during the '30s laud the dramatic effects of the stage lighting, highlighting the band's soloists in different colors.'

'Irving Mills began managing us when we were in the Kentucky Club. It was imperative that we have a man like that, a front man, because I don't think we could have done it alone without his guidance. When anything important pertaining to Ellington came up, he was there in person. He didn't send someone else out. When he made the second European trip with us, he was so sick he had to have a doctor in attendance twenty-four hours a day, but he made it every step of the way. He was a businessman, sure, but he always saw to it we had the best in transportation. The band didn't know what a bus looked like in the early days. We had private Pullman cars, with 'Duke Ellington' on the side, and a private baggage car, through every state of the union, and we were the only band in the country, white or colored, that had that. On one-nighters, we lived out of the train, and everybody had a lower berth. We parked the cars in a station, and there was no running around looking for rooms, north, south, east, or west. That was the Mills regime. When it ended, we came to the covered wagon – the bus.
  You could be so comfortable in that parlor car. If Duke wanted to get up and write music, all he had to do was put his robe over his pajamas. You could rest all day if you wanted to, and that meant you arrived at the next engagement in good shape. Duke liked to rest, but this way of traveling also gave him such isolation. He wasn't bothered with people worrying him about a hundred different things all day long. When we played a long engagement, we gave up the cars, but closing night the Pullmans would be back in the station.'

• [This webpage showed Sonny's] birthdate as 1902-12-03, the date Greer gave to Balliet in the 1974-12-23 New Yorker interview Tucker republished in the Ellington Reader.
• ...Per Mark Tucker, [the] most recent State Dept. passport found for Greer, dated 3/21/39, shows 12/13/02.
• The 1933 Majestic passenger list gives his birthdate as 1902 12 13, consistent with the passport.
• Find-a-grave shows Greer at Woodlawn Cemetery, and cites date of birth as 1895-12-13
• Brooks Kerr, who you will recall knew and gigged regularly with Greer for many years, says Greer told him his actual date of birth was 1895-12-13, and Brooks heard the same date from Greer's wife Millie (born in Brooklyn, 1892-01-14 according to Brooks).
• In 1931, Wellman Braud (b. 1891) was the band's oldest member [but per] the Chicago Defender profile of Greer by Chester Nerges from the Chicago Defender (reprinted in A Cotton Club Miscellany), Greer [at 36] was the oldest member of the band, and began his musical career at Chattel High School in Long Branch in 1914.

• The census records don't give dates of birth but do show ages.
  • The 1910 census has a William A. Greer, age 14, living in Long Branch, in Monmouth County, N.J., but the place of birth is South Carolina.
  • The 1930 census gives Sonny's age as 29, suggesting birth in 1899 or 1900.
  • The 1940 census gives his age as 39, again suggesting he was born in 1899 or 1900.
  • I couldn't find him in the 1920 census and I thought there was also a special census for 1925 but I couldn't locate it just now.
• The Majestic 1933 passenger list gives Sonny's age as 30 and his date of birth as 13th December 1902.
• The Île de France passenger list May 3, 1939 has William Greer, age 39, which indicates a birth in 1899 or 1900.
• The Associated Press 1982 announcement of Sonny's death gives his age as 78. The New York Times News Service gave his age as 78 and his year of birth 1903.
• The source of the Find-A-Grave entry is not disclosed. A photo of Greer's headstone would be helpful.

'Going through grade school, Duke Ellington was far from outstanding. He wasn't really a dud, because his life could easily have run parallel to that of Einstein, whose grades, I understand, were terrible, too. But what can definitely be said of Duke Ellington is that he was born an artist and that he had the typical ways of an artist from birth. Basically, anything that didn't move or inspire him didn't exist, regardless of how it could be explained in philosophical terms. '

• Orphaned by age 5, never knew his father, heard once that his father had been a singing waiter.
• Raised by his grandmother and aunt; two uncles were musicians.
• At age 5, played Buckwheat in an Our Gang film, shot in New York.
• Injured his right hand as a child:
  '  When I was a little boy, we lived in New York City on 63rd Street, and it sloped downhill west to the Hudson River. All of us kids liked to coast down it on our roller skates, and then grab hold of a truck and get pulled back up.
    One day the back of the truck was crowded with kids and there was no room for me, so I tried to hang onto the side. The truck swerved a little and I started to fall under it. I tried to push away but my fingers got caught in a chain hanging there. Well, it kept me from falling under the truck but my hand was cut pretty bad and they had to cut my finger tips off. Maybe today's surgeons might have saved them, but I guess the man who worked on me didn't know how.
    When I got back to school they tried to teach me how to write with my left hand, but I couldn't do it. So, as soon as my hand had healed I went back to doing everything with my right hand. It wasn't until years later, after joining Duke, that I started playing trumpet with my left hand...
    With Duke, you were in show business, and show business meant just that. You're there to perform, and nothing must interfere with the enjoyment of your patrons. You must try to hide any deformity you have which might divert their attention from what you are doing. You don't want them feeling sorry for you. You want them to enjoy your music.
• Graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, New York and Wilberforce University, Ohio. Did post-graduate studies at Ohio State before returning to New York

• "And there was music in the neighbourhood."
• An instrument repairman, a Mr. Scates ... gave Jenkins his first horn, a peckhorn.
• "Mr. McFarland, who lived about a block away and worked for the C.G. Conn Instrument Company ... organised a boys' band, got some good used instruments from Conn and taught us to play them. ... One day he brought me a cornet and told me if I would learn to play the scales he would give it to me. I practised for about a week and then showed him I could do it. So, I got my first cornet, and then he started giving me lessons. Well, I got into Mr. McFarland's band along with some other kids in the neighbourhood. Among them was Benny Carter ... Mr. McFarland taught us how to march, as well as to play. Sometimes ... we would lead the parade to the park ... we'd get paid for it. So, I guess you could say that I got my start as a professional musician while still in grade school."
• Joined the 369th Cadet Band, led by Lt. Eugene Michaels, formerly an instructor at the Jenkins Orphanage, assistant director of Jim Europe's 369th Regiment Band, and later director of the 15th Infantry Band. "He was a fine teacher and an excellent trumpet player."
• Played in the Public School 87 orchestra, then in the junior high school orchestra. Russell Procope played in the same junior high orchestra and Bubber Miley lived nearby.
• Professional beginnings:
  "From the time I was in Junior High School I was always busy trying to break into the business. Some of us kids used to wangle our way into the entertainment spots to listen to the bands, and beg for tryouts. ...By being around I sometimes got the chance to sit in for some regular band member who failed to show, and they couldn't care how old I was if I could do the job. They would put me in behind the bass drum, where my short pants wouldn't show and, if I could keep up with the band, I'd get paid. So, all through high school I was playing gigs. I even had a tryout with Fletcher Henderson..."
• With Horace Henderson:
  "Smack ... did recommend me to his brother Horace - we called him Little Smack. And, when I graduated from High School, Horace [Henderson] went to see my grandmother and asked if I could go with him to Wilberforce University. He had a band out there called the Wilberforce Collegians, and he was recruiting around New York for young men to go to college there and play in his band. He had already signed up Benny Carter and Rex Stewart and a few others... During the school year we played week-end dates, and during the summer we would go on tour."
  
  "...The band did well financially ... when I graduated I had 1,600 dollars in my pocket and two cars. I stayed with the band for another year..."
• Lena Horne's father, Teddy, bought a Conn gold trumpet for Jenkins.
• Returning to New York, Jenkins organized his own band, the Jenkins Jumpers, which became the house band at the Savoy.
  "... while we were there ... I was invited to join Duke.

• Joined Duke in 1928 on, according to him, Bubber Miley's recommendation (Storyville 46, p.126). He replaced Louis Metcalf, who claimed to have put Jenkins in in his place - see the personnel change discussion at 1928 10 00 below.
• "All of us were well educated and well trained musically and quite capable of composing. Naturally, we improvised most of our own solos and, whenever we came up with something like a complete composition that was good enough for the band, the Duke paid us liberally. Where the piece didn't require too much work to fit the band, the guy might share in the ASCAP credit...
• '... I think we got more numbers out of a session than many bands could. And, I think that was because everyone in the band was endowed with so much natural talent. We didn't have to pray over anything and write it all out. Duke, or someone, would just set down a background to give us the chord level and general idea, and that took only about ten minutes. Then Johnny Hodges, or someone, would start some figure, like -ba'da'ta'da'ta'da'Bing, and that was it. Everyone would hear his own part in his own ear, and we'd set up and do it that way. So, a lot of our stuff was created right in the studio and, if it sounded good, we'd record it and Duke would write it down later from the record. Sometimes, he'd add a little here or there to stretch it out for dance or concert purposes, and we'd look at it the next day and wouldn't recognize it. Duke would laugh and say 'This is just what you were doing yesterday.
  
  We had a lot of fun with Duke. He is warm and vibrant, sometimes a little serious but he never loses his sense of humour. He is a man anyone can accept totally. Sometimes you like certain traits in a man. and dislike other traits. But, you love Duke all the way.
  
  Did you know that Duke developed his own technique and styles mainly by utilizing the band? He used to set us on the stand and pay us union scale, maybe for five hours, just to help him formulate chords. He'd assign different notes to every instrument in the band and say 'Play that, B'a'a'm!', and it might produce a big C'13th, what we call a Christmas Chord. Then he'd take those same notes and switch them to different instruments and while you'd still have a big C'13th, it would sure sound a lot different. Sometimes he'd do that three or four times before he found just the combination he wanted.
  
  ...Duke was testing for what we called techni-choir. One thing among many he discovered, was that if you get sounds pitched very close together they would produce a mike-tone. Like a trumpet, upper register trombone and lower register clarinet would produce a mike-tone that would sound almost like a fourth instrument. And, that's the way Mood Indigo came into being. Another time we worked five hours on a passage using seven different relative keys. We didn't know what that was all about at the time, but later it was the intro to St. Louis Blues, and it worked.'

• left Duke in December 1934 due to illness (Ulanov 1946, says tuberculosis) and was admitted to Harlem Hospital (Chicago Defender 1935-01-05; Baltimore Afro-American 1935-01-05).
• recovered in 1935 and played in Adrian Rollini's Tap Room Band and in 1936, at Connie's Inn, leading Luis Russell's band before becoming a club owner.
• returned to Ellington at the Cotton Club in March 1937. A photo in Rex Stewart's Boy Meets Horn shows the seven-man brass team of Whetsel-Williams-Jenkins-Stewart-Nanton-Brown-Tizol there.
• In late 1937, temporarily "bedded following an intricate throat operation" (Melody Maker 1937-11-13).
• last known gig with Ellington was at Randall's Island 1938-05-29.
• Pittsburgh Courier, 1939-11-25 p.21

  'Cleveland, Ohio, Nov.22 - Cleveland friends of Freddie Jenkins ... who is now in Sea View Sanitorium, Staten Island, will circulate a petition to be signed and sent to various New York publishers, asking that they consider publishing songs written by Jenkins while a patient at the sanitorium. The petitions, according to friends, will be sent to certain band leaders also.'

• Jenkins:
  "...the time came when I knew I'd had it, so I stepped down off the bandstand. I didn't actually quit, and Duke didn't fire me. I don't think Duke ever fired anybody in his life. I just became inactive, and technically that's where it still stands today."
• Haufman writes that by the end of 1935, Freddie joined Adrian Rollini's Tap Room Band, made six recordings under his own name in 1935, and became a member of Luis Russell's band at Connie's Inn and occasionally directed it. After leaving Duke again due to health, but after he recovered, he played in a small band led by Hayes Alvis.
• Freddie went on to be a song writer, press agent, advance man and booking agent, "musical adviser," disc jockey, press correspondent, real estate and insurance broker, and a sheriff's deputy in Fort Worth, Texas (see 1972 05 17).

• Procope's parents were amateur musicians, with his mother playing piano and singing in a choir, his father playing violin.
• Russell and a brother started violin lessons when he was six and he played in the first violin section of the Commerce High School Orchestra.
• His mother bought him an Albert system clarinet when he was 14, and he played Albert with Ellington. He joined the 369th Cadet Boys' Band and when he was sixteen or seventeen, his mother gave him an alto sax.
• Russell's first professional gigs were around age 18 and got his first steady job doubling alto sax and clarinet in a 5 piece dance school band in 1927.
• He later joined Henry Sapiro's [recte Henri Saparo] 10-piece band at the Bamboo Inn, after which he took a dance school band job again, working for various band leaders including Jelly Roll Morton, who took the group on the road as Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers.
• He worked with Omer Simeon, who, with Bigard and Buster Bailey, influenced his style.
• Procope's experience before Ellington included McKinney's Cotton Pickers in Detroit, a one-nighter in Washington D.C. with Ellington, Benny Carter, Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Tiny Bradshaw, Ralph Cooper, Teddy Hill (1934-1937), and the John Kirby Sextet (1937-1943).
• Drafted in 1943, he played in army bands in New York, Kentucky and Arizona, and was able to play outside gigs. When his regiment was due to go overseas, he was tranferred to the Medical Corps, received some training as a medic and then was returned to the army band until October 1945.
• Procope freelanced, played a guest solo in an Ellington broadcast, and rejoined the Kirby sextet.
• In April 1946 Ellington called to ask him to play a Saturday afternoon broadcast in Worcester, Mass. (1946 04 27), replacing Hardwick that evening as well, and day to day for the next 10 days. He appears then to have been offered a permanent job, and played lead alto until 1950, when he was recorded on clarinet in Mood Indigo.
• He would sometimes sub for Carney on bari sax and Ellington bought him a bass sax which he still had in 1979.
• Russell stayed with the Ellington orchestra until Duke's death.
• He played once with the Duke Ellington Orchestra under Mercer Ellington, and from 1974 to 1978 he played in a trio with Sonny Greer and Brooks Kerr before joining a quintet.
• Procope died in New York 1981 01 21, predeceased by his wife Helen, who died in late 1980.

'I enjoyed every day I was a member of the Ellington band, even though it was gruelling trying to keep up with Duke. But I knew I was a part of something that was very special, something that would never die. But the biggest joy I had, and I think the other musicians had too, was the music. Duke constantly surprised me. Musically, I could never predict what was going on in Duke's head.'

'A Small World, To Be Sure!
  A Chester Times staff member recently visited composer-pianist Duke Ellington in New York City. During conversation, Ellington asked: "How's Mr. Doubet? Ever run across him?"
  It developed that years ago, when the Duke of the jazz and popular music world was a little tyke, he worked after school hours in the store the Chester jeweler operated in Washington, years before Doubet made his bow to Chester as a merchant at 7th and Edgmont.
  Surely is a small world, after all.'

'Armstrong was the leading Negro manual training school. Duke went there to study drawing, freehand and mechanical. He was deeply interested in art, interested in little else in the secondary school curriculum, and it was only for those classes that he would show up with regularity. His grades were both sustained and let down by his interests.'

• Mr. Spring says Ellington wrote his first composition, Soda Fountain Rag, in 1914 or possibly 1915. Steven Lasker:

  'Source is Austin Lawrence "Chronology," p405: "Later 1914-Early 1915 Ellington composes his first piece, "Soda Fountain Rag" '

'We had a piano player in the Poodle Dog who was one of the best when he was sober, which wasn't often. When he got to where he couldn't play any better than I could, the boss would throw him out, take my place behind the soda fountain, and have me play piano. The only way I could learn how to play a tune was to compose it myself and work it up, and the first one was Soda Fountain Rag.'

Source is Austin Lawrence, p.405: "Midyear 1915, Ellington's close friend Edgar McEntree dubs him "Duke" around this time, because of Ellington's sartorial elegance and his flashy piano playing.

Lawrence's source is not identified.

'My mother explained that he got his nickname through being so fastidious. He kept himself well clothed and always presented a neat appearance... It was the thing to do then to be smart and attractive, and if he had a patch on his pants, my mother said, the pants were nevertheless always pressed...'

'She attended elementary and junior high schools in the Washington Metropolitan area and finished her basic schooling in New York City ...graduated from ... Columbia University with a degree in biology. In 1941, Ellington established Tempo Music,... installing her as president of the company. ... Ruth's duties at Tempo included signing contracts, arranging some travel at Duke's request, and, most importantly, keeping Duke's music copyrighted. According to her own interview statement, she never arranged bookings. Other interests included hosting a Sunday salon for musicians, appearing at and listening to recording studio sessions once or twice a year, and keeping in touch with the older band members' wives. The older band members ... along with the earlier singers ... were like family to Ruth. After Duke's death ...Ruth maintained Tempo until 1995 when she sold 51% ... to a New York publishing firm, Music Sales.'

' Al Hibbler I met first in L. Rock Ark. I knew he was a singer but had never heard him sing. Our paths crossed from time to time until '43 we were playing the Hurricane Club... and Mary Lou Williams and Shorty Baker came up and told me that Al was downstairs in the Turf Club and that it was possible to maybe get him to sing for us. So I sent for him. They brought him up and he sang something. I naturally liked it - but the thought of adding to the payroll was of quite some concern and a smart business mind would not have considered it. But me - well, my ear makes my decision. So I said great - I like it - you just started work. It was much easier than I thought it would be because he has ears that see. He learned song after song and soon he was our major asset, truly a great investment both $ wise and the luxury of my ear was kept in deep fat - He had so many sounds he told of fantasy beyond fantasy.'

'He wouldn't let anybody touch me, he had a way of bringing me on stage, he called me, just do this, 'Walk towards me,' and I'd walk towards him. I'm the straightest walker you've ever seen in your life, and I'd walk to him, walk me out on stage and he'd take his shoulder and put it against mine and when we get to the mike, he just turn his shoulder like that and a lot of people actually believed I could see for a long time.'

• Arthur Whetsel, trumpet
• Duke Ellington, piano
• William Escoffery guitar
• Otto Hardwick, string bass
• Lloyd Stewart, drums

Source is Austin Lawrence, p406: "Winter 1917, Arthur Whetsel on trumpet and Otto ("Toby") Hardwick on saxophone join Duke's teenage band. They also play with local banjoist Elmer Snowden."

Source is Austin Lawrence, p406: "Spring 1917, Duke drops out of high school, begins an affair with Edna Thompson, a neighborhood girl."

'They had met while he was still going to Armstrong, a kind of rough high school.'

• Jimmy was born in Dillon, S.C. but the family moved to Philadelphia when he was five.
• His father, an amateur musician, brought home a baritone horn when Jimmy was six. Growing up Jimmy played the baritone, piano, trumpet, saxophone and (Boehm system) clarinet. Hamilton also played flute, but there is no indication he performed with it in Ellington's band.
• Hamilton's father died when Jimmy was 12.
• Jimmy moved to New York around age twenty, studying clarinet with Leo Russianoff. In 1943 he told a writer, Bob Thiele, that he wanted to emulate Benny Goodman's technique.
• Reed says his first New York work was with the Jimmy Mundy band; Haufman says he made his professional debut on trumpet, and his first engagement of real importance was with the Frank Fairfax group in 1937, replacing Charlie Shavers.
• Reed says that after transferring to New York A.F.of M. Local 802 in 1940, Hamilton worked with Teddy Wilson, Eddie Heywood, Benny Carter and Dave Martin. Haufmann has him playing with Lucky Millinder, Eddie Heywood, Jimmy Mundy and Bill Doggett in 1939 and joining Wilson's sextet in 1940.
• In May 1943 he joined Ellington, replacing Chauncey Haughton, who in turn had replaced Bigard.
• Herr Haufmann says Ellington recordings featuring Jimmy are too numerous to list in his article, but he specifically singles out Air Conditioned Jungle, Ad Lib on Nippon, The Tattooed Bride, September 12th Blues, Pretty and the Wolf and Tenderly.
• Haufmann discusses the differences in Hamilton's clarinet and tenor sax styles, and quotes Ellington's nephew as saying Hamilton carried a locking mini-bar on the road so he could sell drinks to other band members.
• Reed says Jimmy began thinking about quitting Ellington about 5 years before he left. Various reasons included the travel and Ellington's failure to credit him for compositions, including as co-composer of Ad Lib on Nippon. The culminating incident appeared to be in March 1968 when Jimmy refused to travel from Las Vegas to Washington D.C. on a day off to perform in an Ellington small group at the White House state dinner for the Liberian president.
• While Reed says he quit "the next time the band was in New York, July 1968," the Ellington octet which began a residency there at the Rainbow Grill in late May did not include Jimmy.
  
  Hamilton freelanced in New York until moving to the Virgin Islands in 1970.
• He died September 20 1994 in the Virgin Islands, leaving behind a son, four grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.

Irresistable Jass
The Duke's Serenaders
Colored Syncopaters' '

• Arthur Whetsel, trumpet
• "Brother" Miller, C-melody sax
• Duke Ellington, piano
• Bill Miller, banjo, guitar, banjorene
• Otto Hardwick, string bass
• Felix Miller, drums

• Arthur Whetsel, trumpet
• Otto Hardwick, C-melody sax
• Duke Ellington, piano
• Sterling Conaway, banjorene
• Bill Jones, drums

'After a short spell with my father and mother, I was left with my grandfather and grandmother in Washington, while they went off to New York. Thus my relationship with my parents was rather remote except during the summers, when I would go to New York for two or three months. I guess this went on for about eight years, because I was nine when they definitely separated.'

'Come out Decoration Day with
THE VICTORY CLUB
BIG MATINEE AND RECEPTION
at ODD FELLOWS HALL 1606 M Street, Northwest
Friday Afternoon and Evening, May 30, 1919
Duke Ellington's Jazz Matinee – 3.45 to 7.45 P.M.
Admission 30 Cents
Doc Perry's Section of Capital City Clef Club at Night
8.30 to 1.30 A.M.
Night Admission 50 Cents '

'Another child, born shortly after Mercer, died in infancy.'

"Early 1920: A second child of Duke and Edna Ellington dies at birth;"..

'Mary Elizabeth Roach was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and raised in Atlantic City from the age of six until she was fourteen. She won an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre in New York at seventeen (per liner notes to Bethlehem Records BCP-64.) Ellington suggested her stage name.'

'You had to wage psychological battles to get things done. I had to prod [Duke] to decision through disagreement.
  Paul Gonsalves knew about that, too. When he really wanted to blow or there was someone in the audience he wanted to impress, his trick was to come in and act real drunk. He knew that any time he did this Ellington would drive him and make him play two or three solos back to back. To make it harder, Ellington would increase tempos and put him through paces that would call on every bit of his mental and technical ability, all in order to make him seem ridiculous. The greatest punishment for Paul would be to go out front to face the audience and then to return to his chair, having been proved ineffectual. But sometimes after he had pulled his act, Paul would turn around from the piano when Pop wasn't looking and wink at me over his left shoulder! His little trick had worked. '

'When Jimmy [sic] left St. Louis, he left a bass behind - a little half-sized fiddle. It lay around for about half a year, and the more Jimmy played with Duke, the more my interest in that bass grew. I picked it up finally and for six months practiced with the radio and with records, and then I played some non-union gigs at school. I joined the union in December, 1941, and I got with Lionel Hampton about that time. My being hired by Hampton was more or less a publicity stunt, I guess, because I was Jimmy's cousin - I'd only been playing about seven months. I stayed three or four months with Hampton, then went back to school...'

'...
Greenlee: Ah, what were the circumstances of your leaving the band? And when did this take place?

Davis: I wanted to get married, [laugh] I left, soon as we came back Europe. I came back and I never went back to New York.

Greenlee: What was his response to your leaving?

Davis: I didn't get any response. I just - I left, I truly just got on the plane that came back and I think I called Celley or somebody.

Greenlee: Saying that you'd -[both at once]

Davis: Uh huh, uh huh. That wasn't too nice [laugh] but we were on a little vacation then, I think. There weren't any dates that I remember, coming right here.

Greenlee: Did you feel some distance from him, to do that? I mean, you didn't WANT to have goodbyes?

Davis: I think that I was just so anxious to make it FINAL, I didn't want to feel like I had to go back. Cuz I had -all those years, I kept saying I was going to leave and finally I said, "I MUST do this now." '

"I first knew Rex in Washington, D.C. that was back in 1920, and I had just about the most popular band in town, in my band was Otto - Hardwick, Art Whetsel, Eddie Ellington, who became known as "Duke Ellington," later.

"We played all of the Dancce [sic] Halls and worked almost every night.

"One night we were playing Murrays Casino and a band of younger fellows came in to audition to try out for some dates. That was a crazy bunch of kids led by a piano player named Ollie - Blackwell. They called themselves the "Clowns Band" and sat on the Floor or jumped up on the piano while playing. We did not think much of them, but we did notice Bernard Addison the Band-Man, and the kid in whort [sic] pants, who did not blow good, but he sure was loud!!!!

"Well the years passed and the next time I saw Rex, we both were in N.Y. There had been the split up of my original Washingtonians..."

'...Going back to 1921, when I was one of the seven young members of Ollie Blackwell's clowns, I stayed in music all my life. 1921 was a momentous year for us members of Ollie Blackwell's Ragtime Clowns because we were actually part of a show! ...

"...Washington, DC, in 1921 was the right time and place for me to hear music. I don't think there were many towns with more dance halls than Washington,..." (discusses battles of the bands, then)

"... At any rate my first awareness of this delightful phenomenon was at the Lincoln Colonnades. There were three bands, but the main battle was between Doc Perry and Sam Taylor. The third outfit was only a pick-up group with Duke Ellington on piano, a fellow named Tobin on C-melody sax, Otto Hardwicke on bass violin and Stick-A-Makum on drums. There were others in the band too, but I don't recall their names or faces...'

• The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington chronology says Ellington made his first trip to New York with Greer, Hardwick, Whetsel and Snowden in 1921, where Ellington would meet James P. Johnson, again, and Willie "The Lion" Smith.
• Lawrence p.406 says:

  'March 10, 1921: Duke makes his first trip to New York, accompanied by Sonny Greer, Toby Hardwick, Artie Whetsol [sic], and Elmer Snowden.'

• Lasker, The Washingtonians: A Miscellany:

  'Brooks Kerr tells me that Sonny Greer told him that "Sonny Greer's Washingtonians," which also included Hardwick and Ellington, first came to New York where they played for two or three weeks beginning 10Mar21 at Busoni's Balconnades Ballroom, on Broadway near West 65th St. Sonny also recalled that Dan Healy booked the room, Mr. Busoni helped the Washingtonians get their local 310 union cards, and the three bands which played Busoni's each night were the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Phil Napoleon's Memphis Five and Sonny Greer's Washingtonians. (See Tucker's "Ellington: The Early Years," p289n3.)'

• Tucker:

  'Greer may have been the one who lured Ellington to New York for a brief visit in 1921, when the two played at Busoni's Balconnade [sic] opposite the Original Dixieland Jazz Band...
   This is the only reference I have seen to an appearance by Ellington in New York at such an early date. Greer may have been referring to the Balconnades [sic] Ballroom, located near Broadway and 66th Street, which featured bands such as the Original Memphis Five and the New Orleans Five.'

• Ken Steiner:

  'Although an early trip to New York seems possible, even likely, given the proximity of Washington, D.C. to New York City, the only indication of this trip to New York is Greer's recollection 58 years later in Tim Weiner's "Keeping Time with Sonny Greer" article in the Soho Weekly News (June 15, 1979).'

• Ralph Wondraschek:
  'Re Ellington at Balconades in March 1921: I can definitively tell you that that date is impossible - the [Original Memphis Five] was in Montreal, Canada, the [Original Dixieland Jazz Band] at Follies Bergère - please refer to part 2 of my [Original Memphis Five] article in VJM.
    ...my research into the career of the Original Memphis Five excludes a March 1921 Ellington engagement at the Balconades Ballroom in NYC where he supposedly played opposite the [Original Memphis Five] & the [Original Dixieland Jazz Band]. At that time, the [Original Memphis Five] played an engagement at the Claridge Cabaret, Montreal, Canada, and the [Original Dixieland Jazz Band] appeared on their long-time job at Folies Bergère, NYC.
   ...March 1923 is, as far as I can ascertain, the most likely time period for Ellington's stay at the Balconades, as the [Original Memphis Five] then played there.
    Sixte Busoni opened his "Balconades Ballroom" on January 14, 1922 - not earlier. Please refer to part 2 of my [Original Memphis Five] piece for the contemporary clipping dealing with the History of "Healy's Golden Glades".
    The [Original Memphis Five] played at Busoni's Balconades during March 1922, but the [Original Dixieland Jazz Band] was not doing so (actually, [it] was dissolved from February 10 to April 10, 1922, and thus did not play any public appearances).
    The [Original Memphis Five] played at Busoni's Balconades during the second half of March 1923. The [Original Dixieland Jazz Band] was also a Busoni group during this period, and alternated between Busoni's Danceland (95th & Broadway) and Busoni's Balconades (66th & Broadway) during early 1923.'
• Other factors indicating the 1921 date is incorrect:
  • Sixte Busoni appears to have taken over the Balconades or Balconnades [both spellings appear in print] Ballroom from building owner Tom Healy:
    • The Evening Telegram carried ads for Thomas Healy's Three Floors of Good Cheer at Broadway & 66th St. in February 1922. The Balconades Ballroom is named in the ads
    • In January 1922, Variety reported an announcement had been made of the opening of the Balconnades [sic] Ballroom at Healy's, without Tom Healy mentioned. It said dancing would be to the music of Castle's Society and Memphis Jazzband Orchestra, and "The Balconnades Ballroom seems to be in line with Tom Healy's previously announnced [sic] intention of disassociating himself from the restaurant business."
  • The Daily Star reported The Original Dixieland Jazzband was engaged for the new Balconades Ballroom in the Healy Building, which was to open that night, January 14, 1922
  • In March 1922, Variety reported The Roseland Amusement Corp. was denied an injunction against Sixte Busone, operator of the Balconnades Ballroom above Healy's to restrain him from employing Philip Napoleon and Milford Mole.
  • In May 1922 the Brooklyn Standard Union ran articles about Danceland on Coney Island which said it was operated by the same management as the Balconades Ballroom. They refer to continuous music provided by the Memphis Five and Busoni's Syncopators.
• Peripheral information:
  • Sixte Busoni's name is found in the press as an orchestra manager with various groups as early as 1914 (New York Herald, New York, N.Y. 1914-08-02 p.10)
  • Thomas Healy's Balconades Ballroom, on the third floor of his building is found in the press as early as 1914 (The Evening Telegram, New York, 1914-11-17 p.12)
  • In mid-1922 Busoni was reported to be the head of leading dancing institutions in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Philadelphia, including the Balconades. (The Evening Telegram, N.Y., Brooklyn Standard Union 1922-05-14 p.6)

'...there's been no documentation found of this event. Sonny Greer did recall a trip to NY prior to the Sweatman gig (mentioned in Steven Lasker's Washingtonians Miscellany), perhaps this is what Floyd [Snelson] was referring to?'

'When I was with Duke I learned an awful lot. I had four degrees, but I always tell anyone that I learned more at the School of Ellington than at any of the other schools.'

• Elmer Snowden's Big Jazz Band, Washington, D.C.
• Ike Dixon's Jazz Demons of Baltimore

• DESS says Ericson was christened Rolf Nils Börje Eriksson, but was known as Roffe. He anglicized his surname to Ericson when he moved to the United States.
• The August 2018 DESS bulletin devotes ten pages to him, including an interview.
• Ericson was established in his musical career before being hired by Ellington in 1963. In late 1947 he moved from Sweden to the United States, where he worked with a myriad of musicians, including Charlie Barnet, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Stan Kenton, etc., returning to Sweden from time to time.
• New Desor Vol. II, says he joined Ellington in mid-April, 1963. Vol. I, as well as the Nielsen discography, have his first recording with Ellington as a broadcast from a dance in Weisbaden on May 25 that year.
• Steve Voce's obituary has Rolf joining Ellington April 18, 1963, but that is the date of a small group recording session using only Ray Nance on trumpet.
• In his interview, Rolf says the first time he performed with Ellington's band was in Philadelphia. Ericson may have meant the Red Hill Inn in Pennsauken, N.J., near Philadelphia, where the band performed April 5 to 7, 1963, and returned in May.
• DESS has Ellington using him in the June 1963 tour of Sweden and adding him to the band on its return to the U.S.
• Rolf stayed until April 1964, leaving because he wasn't paid enough, but played with the band in a tour in 1969 and occasionally in 1971 and 1973.
• Ericson spent his last years in Stockholm, dying there in 1997.

'On Wednesday evening last, the evening classes of Armstrong High School under the directorship of C. W. Childs. Jr.. and Principal J. P. Taylor held their Yuletide exercises. The program consisted of an exhibition of work of various classes in art and sciences. Dancing in the gymnasium with music by Duke Ellington was an enjoyable feature. '

Overview of early 1923

• In early 1923, or possibly in late 1922, Sonny Greer, Otto Hardwick and Ellington went to New York to work for Wilbur Sweatman.
• Greer:

  'We come to New York, so me and Duke had a room together. I had an aunt in New York, got a room. I think I was giving her $3.00 a week. We had adjoining rooms for $3.00 a week. Duke ain't never been to New York. He ain't never seen no building as tall as that in his life.

• Ellington wrote that in New York, he first boarded with LeRoy Jeffries' mother, then moved to Forny Brooks' apartment. Later, he boarded with Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Harper when he was Harper's rehearsal pianist at Connie's Inn and they both worked at Barron's and the Kentucky Club.
• Mercer Ellington:

  'It wasn't at all easy for my parents when they first moved to New York. All they had was a room in the house of Leonard Harper... When I went to visit, the three of us lived in this one room. There was a couch for me and a bed for the two of them. I had no access to the rest of the house... There was no living room, playroom, or anything like that. It must have been 1924 when I first went there, but I can remember Mr. Harper's apartment well at 2067 Seventh Avenue...'

• Edna continued living in the Harper apartment after she and Duke separated - she is shown there in the 1930 census. Where Ellington lived after leaving Edna and before moving into 381 Edgecombe Ave. is unknown.
• Leaving Sweatman, the musicians hung around and played in various clubs and played rent parties. During this first New York sojourn, Ellington would meet pianists Willie "The Lion" Smith, who was more or less his mentor, James P. Johnson and the young Fats Waller.
• After returning to Washington, they formed a five-piece band with Elmer Snowden. Snowden, Whetsel, Hardwick and Greer would return to New York to play with Waller, but when Waller could not be found, Snowden asked Ellington to join them.
• Pinning down the dates Ellington and his companions finished with Snowden, went home to Washington, and then returned to New York is difficult. The dates Fats Waller played Washington in early June establishes they were home not later than June 10, and did not return to New York before June 3.
• The Wonderland Park job in Baltimore suggests they were still working out of Washington on June 8.

First work in New York – Wilbur C. Sweatman

• Vaudevillian band leader Wilbur C. Sweatman, in New York, wanted to hire Sonny Greer on drums. Greer agreed if Sweatman would also hire Ellington and Hardwick.
• Berresford says Ellington at first was reluctant to join Sweatman's band, but Greer and Otto Hardwick wrote to him every week to persuade him.
• Ulanov:
  '... one eventful day in 1922 [sic], came a wire from bandleader Wilbur Sweatman. He wanted Sonny in New York. Sonny wanted Otto and Duke, and that meant New York for Greer, Ellington and Hardwick... Where "everbody" was rich and stayed high all the time and Duke Ellington, Sonny Greer, Otto Hardwick, Arther Whetsol [sic] and Elmer Snowden had to split a hot dog five ways to stay alive.'
• Lambert:
  'In 1922 [sic] five [sic] of this group of young Washington musicians left for New York - Ellington, Hardwicke [sic], Whetsol [sic], Greer and banjoist Elmer Snowden, the pretext being a telegram from Wilbur Sweatman asking Greer to join his band.'

  Webmaster note:–Lambert conflates the first and second visits.

• By the end of February, the New York Clipper carried an ad for the group referring to Phonograph Artist Wilbur Sweatman ... Assisted by Flo Dade, and his Acme of Syncopators. Ellington, Hartwick [sic], Greer, Maceo Jefferson (banjo) and Ralph Escudero (bass) were listed as the band members.¹
• Ellington:
  'We joined him in New York and played some split weeks in theatres...'
• Several sources say the Washington lads didn't the Sweatman job because in vaudeville, performers did half-week engagements and then moved on, and Sweatman insisted the sidemen use makeup to lighten their skin.
• Ellington in Jazz as I Have Seen It:
  'All at once it looked like the big break had arrived. Wilbur Sweatman sent down from New York for Sonny, and eventually that meant Toby and myself too. But when we got there we found out the work wasn't so good. We just had some theaters to play and they were split-weeks. Sweatman performed every night with his three clarinets in his mouth at one time. But at night it was mellow. We went out every evening regardless of whether we had money or not, and we met all the hip guys.'
• It isn't clear when Greer, Ellington and Hardwick joined Sweatman.
  • Ulanov, the closest to being a contemporary account, seems to suggest they played theatre dates with Sweatman, perhaps before the Lafayette, and Greer mentions playing in New Jersey.
  • In 1922, Sweatman appeared in advertisements and announcments as Wilbur Sweatman & Co. until September. His sidemen, when named, were Earl Gray or William Hegeman on piano and Buddy Edwards on drums. In September that year, Sweatman's act was billed as Acme of Syncopation, and a five-piece group by that name played in Philadelphia that November at the Orpheum.
  • In January 1923 Sweatman and his Acme of Syncopation were at Keeney's [New York?].
  • On February 4, "The Original Wilbur Sweatman and His Band" were advertised at the Orpheum in New Brunswick, N.J. "Wilbur Sweatman and His Band" played 3 days at the Opera House, New Brunswick, N.J. February 8 to 10.
  • On February 28, the New York Clipper carried an announcement that Sweatman's act included Flo Dade and five syncopaters. A banner ad in the same edition named Sweatman, Dade, and sidemen Duke Ellington, piano, Maceo Jefferson, banjo, Otto Hartwick [sic}, saxophone, Ralph Escudero, bass and Sonny Greer, drummer.
  • It seems clear that our heroes were with Sweatman some time before the March 1923 Lafayette week.
  • The March 10, 1923 New York Age has Wilbur Sweatman and Co. at the Lafayette Theatre in New York.
• It also isn't clear when Greer, Ellington and Hardwick left Sweatman.
  • Tucker speculates they were with him in late April (see Grand Theater entry at 1923 04 23). but they were clearly gone by June 7, when Sweatman had a pianist who doubled on sax and a drummer who danced.
  • Nicholson:
    Ellington as told to Carter Harman:
    'In 1923 I came to New York to join Wilbur Sweatman's band - he was the man who played three clarinets at one time - a top vaudeville artist. This lasted a couple of months - this wasn't one of Sweatman's better years.'
  • Greer:
    'Wilbur Sweatman had this engagement at the Lafayette Theatre and so I got the gig for us, we played around New York, in New Jersey but we worked on Keith's Circuit too, but it was just four of us onstage and he played clarinet, three of them at one time.
      Stage setting, he had a beautiful stage setting, whole lot of drapes... He had an engagement in Chicago or somewhere, but we wouldn't go. Said no, we ain't leaving New York, so he got somebody else.'
• Ulanov:
  '...The Washingtonians did not last very long with Sweatman. A few theater dates, the Lafayette, then Harlem's biggest and most important house... and a Staten Island spot, which was, as Sonny put it, "a weekend of grief..."'
• Hasse suggests after leaving Sweatman, the men hustled pool halls during the day, in the evenings made the rounds of night clubs looking for work, and played rent parties Saturday nights. This is consistent with Ellington's statements quoted in Chapter Two of Nicholson.
• Ellington's circle at this time included his mentor, Willie "The Lion" Smith, James P. Johnson, then 18-year-old Thomas A. ("Fats) Waller, Corky Williams and Raymond 'Lippy' Boyette. Ellington said Lippy knew where all the pianos in town were and was good at organizing rent parties.
• Nicholson has several quotations from Ellington, Smith and Greer about how Ellington met Smith (at the Capitol Palace), how their small group of friends (including Waller and Johnson) would play rent parties and such.
• Vail briefly reports Ellington and his friends remained in New York when Sweatman went on tour, surviving on Greer's pool hustling.

Willie (The Lion) Smith, James P. Johnson and Fats Waller

• Ellington in Jazz as I Have Seen It:
  'I got a big thrill when I strolled into the Capitol Club at 140th and Lenox, down in the basement, and found "The Lion" working there. We went the rounds every night, looking for the piano players. We didn't have any gold, but then Sonny was good at that sort of thing. He would stride in, big as life, and tell the man . . . "Hello, Jack, I'm Sonny. I know So-and-So, and he told me to look you up. Meet my pals, Duke and Toby." Then the man would hear that Duke played a whole lot of piano. I'd sit down after "The Lion," and then Fats Waller would sit down after me...'

The Rent Parties

• Ellington in Jazz as I Have Seen It:
  'Jimmy Johnson used to get all the house-rent parties to play. There were so many of them that he turned a lot of them over to Lippy [Raymond Boyette]. Lippy had heard so much piano that he couldn't play any more. He only thought piano. Lippy gave a lot of piano players work, and then he'd remember me. One time, things were so bad that even Sonny took a job playing piano. Lippy knew every piano and player-piano in town. He used to walk around all night long with James P., "The Lion," Fats, and myself. I was one of the main hangers-on. Lippy would walk up to any man's house at any time of night. He'd ring the doorbell. Finally somebody would wake up and holler out the window about who was it making all the disturbance. Lippy would answer, "It's Lippy, and James P. is here with me." These magic words opened anybody's door, and we would sit and play all night long.'

Giving Up

• Ellington in Jazz as I Have Seen It:
  'It wasn't long after that that I found the fifteen dollars in an envelope on the street. It bought me a new pair of shoes, and the fare back to Washington for the three of us. When I finished eating that first home-cooked breakfast, I made up my mind I'd stay put for a while and organize another band.'
• Nicholson p.33 quoting Ellington (New Yorker, 1944-07-08):
  'We got to Washington on a Sunday morning. Otto went to his home, because he lived in Washington, and Sonny came home with me...'

Five-piece Band

• Nicholson p.33
  • quoting Ellington (Duke Ellington Talks to Max Jones and Humphrey Littleton, BBC, 1964):
    'That was the beginning of the five-piece band – Whetsel, Greer, Toby, Snowden and me, it was a sort of cooperative organization, nobody was really the leader, I think Snowden was really the front. We would just sit down at the piano and we'd say you take this and you take that.'
  • quoting Snowden:
    '...I had just about the most popular band in town, in my band was Otto Hardwick, Art Whetsol [sic], Eddie Ellington ... we played all of the dance halls and worked almost every night.'

Trying Again

• Ellington in Jazz as I Have Seen It:
  'After I'd gone back home to Washington and stayed for a while, Fats Waller came through town with a burlesque show. Bushell was with the band too, and Clarence Robinson and Bert Adams were the featured dance team with the show. Sitting in my house, eating chickens by the pair. Fats told us they were all going to quit; that we'd better come on up to New York and get the job.
    Then there was a wire from New York saying that Fats had decided not to leave, so Artie Whetsol [sic], Sonny, Toby, and Snowden went up alone. Then they sent for me; everything had been fixed, the job was a cinch for me! On the way up, I travel in style, blowing all my money on the train. After all, I'm a big shot, I've got a job waiting for me in the big town. I have just enough left for cab-fare uptown. There they are, standing on the corner. "Whatdya know? how's things? and give us some gold," they say. They're busted!
    The job was set back time and time again, and it got so that it looked very bad. We were living with some nice people and they told us we could stay on until we found some work. We kept right on auditioning, but nothing ever happened. There was no work.'
• Tucker tentatively dates the return to New York after the June 8, 1923 booking at Wonderland Park, about 40 miles from Washington but 190 miles from New York.
• Garvin Bushell, as told to Mark Tucker:
  'Adams and Robinson were a dance team, and their agent talked them into getting a band ... Bert Adams was the piano player and Clarence Robinson was the dancer and singer... Seymour Irick on trumpet, Lew Henry on trombone, Mert Perry on drums and myself... Now, one night some fellow fought Bert Adams in the park and shot him. He got killed. So we had to revise the act and got Fats Waller on piano. We put Katie Crippen into the act as singer. One of the agents downtown thought up a name: Liza and her Shuffling Sextette. On a trip to Washington, D.C., a few of us went to hear a band in a little backstreet place. This group was headed by Elmer Snowden, the banjo player. There was a youngster playing piano named Duke Ellington, Toby Hardwick was on saxophone, Schiefe on trumpet and Sonny Greer on drums. After we heard the band, Clarence and I got into a terrific argument and we decided to split up. So Clarence went to Snowden and said,'I've got a job for you.' I kept the original band with Fats on piano.
    In the meantime, we had six and a half more weeks booked with the act on the Politime. Clarence figured he could take this new band and do the gigs, but I decided to beat him to the punch. Early Monday morning I went into the Palace Theatre office in New York. I said, 'Clarence and I split up, and he's bringing in a strange band. I have the original one. Now, I could get a new dancer, or what you want to do?' They got leery and cancelled the whole six and a half weeks. So when Clarence arrived in New York with Snowden, Duke and that bunch, they didn't have any work – I'd cancelled all their jobs.'

  Bushell's recollection is inaccurate. Bert Adams was slain February 28, 1924 (and in an apartment, not a park). If Waller only joined the revue after Adams died, it would have been the year after the Washingtonians returned to New York and began working at the Hollywood Cabaret.
    (The Sun and The Globe reported the Adams murder on February 28, 1924. In March 1924, Variety reported Eugene Shields was indicted for first degree murder, accused of having shot and killed Adams, and identified the deceased as a member of the vaudeville team Adams and Robinson. The front page of the 1924-03-08 New York Age reported Shields shot six bullets at Adams in Shield's apartment the morning of 1924 02 28. It quoted Mrs. Shields as saying she went to a party the night before with Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Robinson. Returning late, she permitted Adams to stay in a spare room for the night. Shields, the brother of a state assemblyman, pled guilty and was sentenced to an indeterminate penitentiary term not to exceed three years. (Depending on which newspaper to believe, his minimum term was one day or one year.)

• From June 3 to 10, 1923, a vaudeville act, "Liza and Her Shuffling Sextet" (also billed/advertised as "Shuffling Sextette," "Shuffling Six" and "Shuffling 6", 'Liza and Her Shuffling Six,' 'Liza and her six dancing "fools"' and 'Liza and her Jazz Demons') played the Gayety Theater in Washington. Personnel seem to have consisted of dancer Clarence Robinson, singer/dancer Katie Crippen, trombonist Lew Henry, clarinetist Garvin Bushell, trumpeter Seymour Irick, drummer Mert Perry, and likely pianist Thomas A. (Fats) Waller.
  • Liza and the Shuffling Six were billed as a special sensational added feature at the Gayety in Washington beginning Sunday June 3.
  • An announcement June 7 said the show was being held until Sunday (June 10) instead of closing Saturday night (June 9). This announcement refers to an added attraction, "Liza and her six dancing "fools" which seems to be described as a girlie show.
  • Liza and her Jazz Demons were included in the "today only" advertisement for the Gayety on June 10.
• According to the Perfesser Bill website, Waller was on the air on WDT in New York on July 20, 1923.
• Elmer Snowden, interviewed by Les Muscutt:
  • It was 1923 when I left to go to New York, but Duke wasn't supposed to be my piano player. We were going in to play for a show... the show had played Washington and had broken up in Washington, so the guy was looking for a band to travel with the show because his band was quittin'.
      Now Fats Waller was in the band, so Fats came across to the place where we were working, and he assured me that HE wasn't quittin', HE wasn't gonna leave him...so I thought, this looks good.
      But my drummer didn't want to go 'cause he had a good job... So now I'm runnin' round lookin' for a drummer and I ran across Sonny, and Sonny said, 'I heard you going to New York?' and I said, 'Oh yes.' and Sonny wants to know would I take him, so I said, 'You're working with Duke, I couldn't take you.' So he said, 'Yeah man I wanna go back to New York.'
      You know Sonny's a BIG guy, so I said, 'All right, OK if you wanna go, I'll take you.' So he came up, there was no rehearsal, we just got the group together and went on to New York.
      Just as we was leaving Duke came up and said, 'You got my drummer, what about me?' So I said, 'We don't need you, Cutie 'cause Fats is gonna play piano with us.' That was a big deal you know, Fats Waller, oh he didn't have as big a name then as he finally got later ... he was well-known in New York...
      Well, we got to New York. That was Arthur Whetsol [sic], Otto Hardwicke [sic]...
      Anyway when we got to New York we couldn't find Fats...and we were there five days...and the guy who told us to come to New York and gave us the money to come...we couldn't find him either, so we were stranded. You can imagine what was happening. Then we found out where this guy was living and we got in touch with him.
      So we said, 'Look, you asked us to come to New York and you said there was going to be a job, and we haven't even had a rehearsal, what's happening? When do we come up for a rehearsal, or when do we go to work?'
      And he said, 'The reason you don't go to work is because you don't have a piano player.'
      So I said, 'That's a funny thing to say, because you said Fats was gonna work with us for sure. Why didn't you say that in Washington, 'cause I could have brought my piano player with us?'
      So he said, 'If you got one, you better send for him.' So I sent for Duke, and he came up that same day.
      So after he got there we rehearsed him.
      Of course the men I had with me...they was my regular band...we didn't have too much rehearsing...we knew what we were doing.'
• Our heroes returned to New York and were out of work for five weeks before opening at Barron's Exclusive Club sometime in July. Ellington in Jazz as I Have Seen It:
  'Then Bricktop came along, and she saved the day for us. I'd worked with Bricktop, the famed Bricktop of Montmartre, Paris, at the Oriental in Washington. Barron's was then a very popular spot, and she knew Barron well. She got him to let his band go and hire us instead. We'd scuffled for five weeks, and here at last we were to go to work...'

'SWEATMAN IN NEW ACT
Wilbur Sweatman , the ragtime and jazz clarionetist, is showing a new act, assisted by Flo Dade and his five syncopators. Tim O'Donnell, of the Casey agency , is headlining the bookings.'

'Wilbur Sweatman recalled that he and Duke Ellington never recorded together, which contradicts a claim by banjoist Mike Danzi ("American Musician in Germany, 1924-39," Schmitten, Germany, 1986) that he and Ellington played together on Sweatman's Gennett recording of "Battleship Kate," of which a rejected/lost version was made circa 1924-08-12 and a remake version on 1924-09-20. The pianist on the latter side (Gennett 5584-B) doesn't sound like Ellington to me.'

• The Washingtonians (Greer, Ellington, and Hardwick but not Snowden or Whetsel) may have played this venue during the middle or last part of March, if they were not still working for Sweatman. Or Sweatman might have been involved too. Snowden was still in Washington.
• Various sources report Greer said he and Duke went to New York the first time in 1921 and played Busoni's Balconnades (or Balconades) Ballroom opposite the Original Dixieland Band and Phil Napoleon's Memphis Five. This could not have happened until March 1923 at the earliest, and if they did play there, was it for one night, or longer? Was it just Sonny and Duke, or was it with Wilbur Sweatman too? Elmer Snowden was not involved, since he seems to have remained in Washington while Ellington and his buddies went to New York the first time. Did Toby Hardwick play with Sonny and Duke at Busoni's?
• It is not at all certain our heroes played here. A late June announcement in The New York Clipper would seem to indicate the first time three orchestras played this club was in June and the paper described this as a novelty. These bands were the Original Memphis Five, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the Circle Quintette, all described as Dixieland combinations. Circle Quintette was not an Ellington group - when it broadcast on WEBJ in 1924 its personnel included Jerry Antonocci and Napoleon Anthony. The Sun announcement said it was from Balconades Ballroom and The New York Telegram and Evening Mail named these members.
• While Greer and Ellington may have travelled to New York in 1921, it seems unlikely only a pianist and a drummer would be hired to play opposite a house band. It is possible Greer, Ellington, Hardwick and Snowden travelled to New York and played in the Balconades in 1921 when it was owned by Thomas Healey, who turned it over to Sixte Busoni in January 1922, but if they did, they did not play opposite the other two bands named by Greer. Given Busoni's prominent role described by Greer, it seems most likely that the job was in 1923 rather than 1921.
• If Greer and Ellington played opposite the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the Memphis Five at Busoni's Balconades Ballroom in March, it would have been with Sweatman and Hardwick, since they were still working for Wilbur in June.
• Other factors indicating the 1921 date is incorrect:
  • Sixte Busoni appears to have taken over the Balconades or Balconnades [both spellings appear in print] Ballroom from building owner Tom Healy:
    • The Evening Telegram carried ads for Thomas Healy's Three Floors of Good Cheer at Broadway & 66th St. in February 1922. The Balconades Ballroom is named in the ads
    • In January 1922, Variety reported an announcement had been made of the opening of the Balconnades [sic] Ballroom at Healy's, without Tom Healy mentioned. It said dancing would be to the music of Castle's Society and Memphis Jazzband Orchestra, and "The Balconnades Ballroom seems to be in line with Tom Healy's previously announnced [sic] intention of disassociating himself from the restaurant business."
  • The Daily Star reported The Original Dixieland Jazzband was engaged for the new Balconades Ballroom in the Healy Building, which was to open that night, January 14, 1922
  • In March 1922, Variety reported The Roseland Amusement Corp. was denied an injunction against Sixte Busone, operator of the Balconnades Ballroom above Healy's to restrain him from employing Philip Napoleon and Milford Mole.
  • In May 1922 the Brooklyn Standard Union ran articles about Danceland on Coney Island which said it was operated by the same management as the Balconades Ballroom. They refer to continuous music provided by the Memphis Five and Busoni's Syncopators.

'Despite their lean weeks away from home they were still determined so they joined Snowden's band, The Washington Black Sox Orchestra, at the Music Box in late June 1923... '

'At Connie's, while working with seasoned professional entertainers, Ellington began learning first-hand about the musical strucure of revues. '

"Whetsol [sic] left us and went back to Howard University to study medicine. Bubber Miley was still young then, but we had him join. Our band changed its character when Bubber came in. He used to growl all night long, playing gut-bucket on his horn. That was when we decided to forget all about the sweet music."

"...Whetsel went back to Howard University and we needed a good man. We wanted Miley...He was playing at a little place uptown and was happy there, so he stalled us off, thinking that if and when Whetsel came back, we'd let him go. One night after we finished work, we went up to Harlem, got Bubber stiff, and when he came to he was in a tuxedo growling at the Hollywood..."

"Vincent Lopez was a recent visitor to the Hollywood and was unstinting in his praise of the cornetist of Elmer Snowden's Washington Black Dot Orchestra, 'Bub' Miley. Mr. Lopez said he is one of the best he has ever heard. 'And we opine that Mr. Lopez is some judge,' Snowden remarked with considerable pride in his voice."

'We had this six-piece band. I used to go kind of everyday to one of the big movie houses on Broadway where they had symphony orchestras then and listen to the symphony orchestras play this beautiful lush music and then go back down to the cellar to my own six pieces and try to make 'em sound like that. (Laughs.)'